pdfreflow: reflow text PDFs - Page 3

Pranananda · 09-03-2010, 10:51 AM

Paolo,

If you are running under Linux, the lowercase pdfreflow command should run the command line interface. The GUI is in PDFReflow.jar, and requires you to run it as:

java -jar PDFReflow-0.8.6.1.jar

Could it be that you have another pdfreflow command? In the terminal, type:

which pdfreflow
type pdfreflow

to see the full path of the the command line.

If you created a shell script to invoke the GUI, this could be the problem. The lowercase pdfreflow command must be in your path, and it must the the command line version.

amoroso · 09-03-2010, 03:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pranananda

If you created a shell script to invoke the GUI, this could be the problem. The lowercase pdfreflow command must be in your path, and it must the the command line version.

I did two mistakes: 1) I forgot to download pdfreflow 2) I created a shell script named pdfreflow that run the PDFReflow JAR. Installing pdfreflow and renaming the script solved my problem. PDFReflow works great, thanks.

Raulnuto · 11-02-2010, 03:55 PM

Hello, is there any other tool which supports also pictures? pdfreflow simply removes them...

Thanks a lot, I found the information here very useful

Francesco · 12-19-2010, 10:46 PM

pdfReflow + calibre = good job!
pdfReflow does a great job removing headers. Even though the result might not be too pleasing to the eye (I opened the resulting html in OpenOffice and didn't like what I saw: quite a few different font sizes, lots of space between paragraphs, etc), Calibre produced a quite decent document. This is cool stuff, hanks!

By the way, I used the GUI, haven't tried the command line.

michaelbr · 01-27-2011, 08:55 PM

Hi Pranananda,
Thanks for this great job. I think I found two bugs in your pdfreflow, could you please confirm it or tell where I can report it? One suggestion, if you can leave the open file button stays at the last location, it'll be great (when you have some spare time, of course, this is just a nice feature).
1) There's a </body> at the top of generated html file, I think this should be an opening instead of closing <body> (almost at the end, there's another </body>).
2) Sometimes there's missing </p>. For instances, the chapter sometimes has a closing </p> tag, sometime it's missing (so 2 paragraphs close by are merged together, this seems random).

KevinH · 01-30-2011, 04:20 PM

Hi,

Just found pdfreflow and was amazed at how good a job it does using the additional xml information available from the pdftohtml program.

I would very much like to see/study the source code to see if inter-paragraph spacing can be improved and how you detect paragraph starts but the svn command on sourceforge produces nothing.

svn co https://pdfreflow.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/pdfreflow pdfreflow

Is there a tar.gz version of the latest java source available someplace? Or a new place to checkout the code from?

Very nice work btw!

KevinH

Pranananda · 02-01-2011, 12:05 AM

@michaelbr, thanks for the bug report. I will incorporate bug fixes you reported into the next version of pdfreflow.

Pranananda · 02-01-2011, 12:08 AM

@KevinH,

The source code for the command line is on sourceforge, and there is a link to the source code on the original post. I haven't put the Java code out there, because the building procedure is so different for the Mac and Windows platform. But all the logic is in the command line, so you can just replace the command line program with the source that is available that the GUI is using (though this doesn't allow you to change the GUI, I realize).

KevinH · 02-04-2011, 11:22 PM

Hi,

Okay, I found the C source code for pdfreflow and looked it over, very nice job!

Do you have any plans to convert your styles from absolute margins using "px" values to relative values using either "em" or "%" as the default?

Given the page width in px is available, it would seem to be possible to scale things just before writing it to the file replacing margin-left px (and margin-right if needed) with % of width. This would allow better reflowing on smaller devices since larger fixed px margins can be a real pain for many mobile devices. If you change it just when written to the file it should change nothing else internally so no other code need change.

Is the style Rect r.width for a paragraph aware/set at all by the page width or is it simply the width of the text in the paragraph? What would be the easiest way to access the page width in the htmlprintstyle routine to make the conversions?

Thanks,

KevinH

Kevin8or · 11-02-2011, 10:48 PM

I'm really pleased by pdftohtml + pdfreflow. Thank you. The programs handle individual files beautifully, but I've not been able to batch process files.

If I enter "pdftohtml -xml *.pdf", I receive "Error: Couldn't open file '*.pdf': Invalid argument."

If I enter "pdfreflow --top=36 --bottom=743 *.xml", the application processes the first file it encounters, and stops.

I have very little experience at the command line. Am I doing something wrong?

frabjous · 11-03-2011, 08:16 AM

Kevin8or,

Probably best to use a for-loop, e.g., on mac or linux:

Code:

for file in *.pdf ; do pdftohtml -xml "$file" ; done

(Can't remember the right syntax for Windows off the top of my head, but I'll look it up if need be.)

Kevin8or · 11-03-2011, 08:26 AM

Ah, cool .. Eh, no joy, but you've given me an avenue of exploration. Thankyou.

Edit: In my Windows XP reference, in a table of batch commands, the syntax is listed as:

Quote:

for %%var in (set)
do [cmd] %%var

I made a .bat file with this:

Quote:

for %%var in *.pdf
do pdftohtml -xml %%var

It didn't work, unsurprisingly. I assume I need to replace %%var with something related to the real names of the files I'm using, which are "RT01.pdf", "RT02.pdf", & "RT03.pdf". (I have more pdf files to do, but these are the ones I'm using for practice.)

frabjous · 11-03-2011, 09:14 AM

My best guess is something like (all one line)

Code:

for %%I in (*.pdf) do pdftohtml -xml "%%I"

Or a single % in both instances if typing in at the command prompt. I don't use Windows so I can't test that.

Kevin8or · 11-03-2011, 09:21 AM

You hit the mark! This did it:

Quote:

for %I in (*.pdf) do pdftohtml -xml "%I"

Out of curiosity, what does the "I" stand for? I mean, why not "A" or "T"?

You've made my day frabjous.

Thank you so much.

frabjous · 11-03-2011, 09:22 AM

It's just the name of variable. You can make it A or T or whatever you want.

01-30-2011, 04:20 PM	#36
KevinH Sigil Developer Posts: 9,070 Karma: 6361556 Join Date: Nov 2009 Device: many	Is the source code available anyplace? Hi, Just found pdfreflow and was amazed at how good a job it does using the additional xml information available from the pdftohtml program. I would very much like to see/study the source code to see if inter-paragraph spacing can be improved and how you detect paragraph starts but the svn command on sourceforge produces nothing. svn co https://pdfreflow.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/pdfreflow pdfreflow Is there a tar.gz version of the latest java source available someplace? Or a new place to checkout the code from? Very nice work btw! KevinH

11-03-2011, 08:16 AM	#41
frabjous Wizard Posts: 1,213 Karma: 12890 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Amherst, Massachusetts, USA Device: Sony PRS-505	Kevin8or, Probably best to use a for-loop, e.g., on mac or linux: Code: for file in *.pdf ; do pdftohtml -xml "$file" ; done (Can't remember the right syntax for Windows off the top of my head, but I'll look it up if need be.)

11-03-2011, 09:14 AM	#43
frabjous Wizard Posts: 1,213 Karma: 12890 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Amherst, Massachusetts, USA Device: Sony PRS-505	My best guess is something like (all one line) Code: for %%I in (*.pdf) do pdftohtml -xml "%%I" Or a single % in both instances if typing in at the command prompt. I don't use Windows so I can't test that.

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09-03-2010, 10:51 AM	#31
Pranananda Connoisseur Posts: 98 Karma: 122982 Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Humboldt County, California Device: ipad, iPod touch, JetBook Lite	Paolo, If you are running under Linux, the lowercase pdfreflow command should run the command line interface. The GUI is in PDFReflow.jar, and requires you to run it as: java -jar PDFReflow-0.8.6.1.jar Could it be that you have another pdfreflow command? In the terminal, type: which pdfreflow type pdfreflow to see the full path of the the command line. If you created a shell script to invoke the GUI, this could be the problem. The lowercase pdfreflow command must be in your path, and it must the the command line version.

11-02-2010, 03:55 PM	#33
Raulnuto Junior Member Posts: 1 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2010 Device: PRS-650	Hello, is there any other tool which supports also pictures? pdfreflow simply removes them... Thanks a lot, I found the information here very useful

12-19-2010, 10:46 PM	#34
Francesco Aficionado Posts: 391 Karma: 710 Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Denver, CO, USA Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Touch	pdfReflow + calibre = good job! pdfReflow does a great job removing headers. Even though the result might not be too pleasing to the eye (I opened the resulting html in OpenOffice and didn't like what I saw: quite a few different font sizes, lots of space between paragraphs, etc), Calibre produced a quite decent document. This is cool stuff, hanks! By the way, I used the GUI, haven't tried the command line.

01-27-2011, 08:55 PM	#35
michaelbr Connoisseur Posts: 81 Karma: 10 Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Murcia/Spain Device: Android 12	Hi Pranananda, Thanks for this great job. I think I found two bugs in your pdfreflow, could you please confirm it or tell where I can report it? One suggestion, if you can leave the open file button stays at the last location, it'll be great (when you have some spare time, of course, this is just a nice feature). 1) There's a </body> at the top of generated html file, I think this should be an opening instead of closing <body> (almost at the end, there's another </body>). 2) Sometimes there's missing </p>. For instances, the chapter sometimes has a closing </p> tag, sometime it's missing (so 2 paragraphs close by are merged together, this seems random).

02-01-2011, 12:05 AM	#37
Pranananda Connoisseur Posts: 98 Karma: 122982 Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Humboldt County, California Device: ipad, iPod touch, JetBook Lite	@michaelbr, thanks for the bug report. I will incorporate bug fixes you reported into the next version of pdfreflow.

02-01-2011, 12:08 AM	#38
Pranananda Connoisseur Posts: 98 Karma: 122982 Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Humboldt County, California Device: ipad, iPod touch, JetBook Lite	@KevinH, The source code for the command line is on sourceforge, and there is a link to the source code on the original post. I haven't put the Java code out there, because the building procedure is so different for the Mac and Windows platform. But all the logic is in the command line, so you can just replace the command line program with the source that is available that the GUI is using (though this doesn't allow you to change the GUI, I realize).

02-04-2011, 11:22 PM	#39
KevinH Sigil Developer Posts: 9,070 Karma: 6361556 Join Date: Nov 2009 Device: many	Hi, Okay, I found the C source code for pdfreflow and looked it over, very nice job! Do you have any plans to convert your styles from absolute margins using "px" values to relative values using either "em" or "%" as the default? Given the page width in px is available, it would seem to be possible to scale things just before writing it to the file replacing margin-left px (and margin-right if needed) with % of width. This would allow better reflowing on smaller devices since larger fixed px margins can be a real pain for many mobile devices. If you change it just when written to the file it should change nothing else internally so no other code need change. Is the style Rect r.width for a paragraph aware/set at all by the page width or is it simply the width of the text in the paragraph? What would be the easiest way to access the page width in the htmlprintstyle routine to make the conversions? Thanks, KevinH

11-02-2011, 10:48 PM	#40
Kevin8or Guru Posts: 977 Karma: 43409226 Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: Bay Area, CA Device: Kindle 3	I'm really pleased by pdftohtml + pdfreflow. Thank you. The programs handle individual files beautifully, but I've not been able to batch process files. If I enter "pdftohtml -xml .pdf", I receive "Error: Couldn't open file '.pdf': Invalid argument." If I enter "pdfreflow --top=36 --bottom=743 *.xml", the application processes the first file it encounters, and stops. I have very little experience at the command line. Am I doing something wrong?

11-03-2011, 09:22 AM	#45
frabjous Wizard Posts: 1,213 Karma: 12890 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Amherst, Massachusetts, USA Device: Sony PRS-505	It's just the name of variable. You can make it A or T or whatever you want.